Overview
Are you tired of the tedious task of manually collecting data from websites? In this guide, you'll learn how to set up a web scraping automation in Taskade that will allow you to instantly extract and organize data from online sources.
💡 Note: New to automations? Visit our Automation Getting Started guide first.
Web Scraping at a Glance
Below is a quick overview of the automation steps:
Step | What It Will Do |
Schedule (Every Week) | Schedules the automation to scan for new updates to a URL in weekly intervals. |
Scrape Webpage | Extracts data from a URL. |
Generate with AI | Generates a summary of the URL. |
(optional) Send Email | Send a weekly summary of the scraped URL to a specific email address. |
Web Scraping Use Cases
Web scraping can transform the way you gather and analyze data. Here are a few popular use cases you can explore to make the most of this automation.
Use Case | Description |
Price monitoring | Track competitor pricing and adjust your strategy accordingly to stay competitive. |
Market research | Collect data on industry trends and consumer behavior. |
News aggregation | Compile articles from various outlets to create a consolidated news feed. |
Job listings | Gather job postings to create a comprehensive job board. |
Social media analysis | Extract social media data to analyze public sentiment and engagement levels. |
Step 1: Schedule Automation
First, let's use the Schedule automation trigger to set a condition for the automation.
Go to the Automations tab in your workspace/folder.
Click ➕ Create automation
Click ➕ Add Trigger and type "schedule" in the drop-down list.
Choose the Weekly present and specify the conditions for the trigger on the right.
Our automation will kick off every Monday at 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Next, let's add the missing automation actions.
Step 2: Add Steps
Click Save changes in the top-right corner.
Click ➕ Add Step and choose the Scrape Webpage action from the list.
Add the URL you want to monitor on the right.
💡 Note: You can also use the RSS trigger to monitor RSS feeds for updates.
Next, let's make sure the automation outputs structured, bite-sized summaries:
Click ➕ Add Step and choose the Generate with AI action.
We need to tell AI what to look for. Use the following settings for the action:
Prompt:
"Analyze URL, Title of webpage, Content and output, and generate a summary in the following format: URL: [URL]; Title: [Title]; Main Points: [Key Points]; Conclusion: [Takeaway]."
Input:
Click ➕ to include: URL, Title of webpage, and Content as parameters.
All that's left is to make sure the summary are delivered straight to your inbox.
Click ➕ Add Step and choose the Send Email action.
Specify the conditions for the action on the right.
Enter the email address you want to send the summaries to.
In the Body field, click ➕ and choose Generate with AI.
💡 Note: You will need to Connect the Gmail integration to your Google account.
When done, click Save changes in the top-right corner.
Add more steps or toggle the automation on in the top-right corner.
And that's it!
😊 Helpful Links
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